Campus Visit

Well, I'm a little late posting this entry, but last week was busy and I wasn't feeling well, so I'm just now getting around to it.

Last Wednesday Aidan made a visit to UT's linguistics department. Had a lovely chat with the undergrad coordinator for the department and sat in on the Linguistics 101 class.

His school's college counselor had said it could never hurt to make a visit to the department of your desired major, that a lot of times if the people in the department really like you they'll go to the admissions people and tell them to "watch for" your name. Scheming mother that I am, I made Aidan make an appointment right away, and Wednesday was the result.

However, sometime during the meeting, the coordinator told Aidan they really have no say in who gets admitted. So while I don't think the visit was a waste, I was pretty disappointed by that. Bjorn says maybe they do "flag" kids' names like the counselor said and they just aren't allowed to say that to the kids who come to visit. So I hope that's it, but I'm bummed, anyway.

For Aidan's part, the visit got him very excited about college. He said the class he sat in on was pretty boring because he already knew what they were talking about, but as for the whole college concept, he's ready to go now. He loves the idea of "specialized classes" (i.e., the ones for your major), he loves that there are more than 11 kids in your entire class (i.e., the freshman class, sophomore class, etc.), etc. He says it will be so nice to be in classes where everyone is there because they're interested in the subject, not just because they have to be there, which is a huge change from the attitude of most of his senior classmates at his Christian school. (He's got a rough class, very apathetic kids, no sense of "community" like last year's senior class had.) So overall he is so ready to be done with high school and get on with LEARNING. (N.B. His high school is a great place for learning, excellent teachers and classes, he's just tired of the attitude of his classmates and ready to do some specializing in the stuff he's most interested in.)

I'm not ready for him to be done with high school. Of course, I wasn't ready for him to be done with kindergarten, either, and that didn't stop the passage of time.

I've been writing lately, fiction (it's actually a fictional blog, I'll post the link at the end of this post for anyone who's interested). It keeps my mind occupied, keeps me from thinking too much about the Empty Nest and all that entails. But when I loosen up the tight rein I've put on my mind where the EN is concerned, it really gets to me. Woke up this morning not feeling all that great, which of course means I was already depressed and then I thought about the fact that September is almost over, and that led me to thinking about how fast this year is gonna go, and next thing you know I had tears streaming down my face. Not a good way to start the day, really. I need to go immerse myself in my story again.

I'm glad God understands mothers' hearts.

Aidan is plowing his way (slowly) through the college application process. He's finished the "common app" that works for both U Chicago and Rice, with the exception of the essays. I think he has the UT one finished except for essays, too. He's barely started on CU Boulder and U Arizona because they have separate applications for each school (UT's is actually part of the "Apply Texas" common application that works for several universities in Texas, although Rice uses a different common app.) I do not envy him all the essays he has to write! He's finished one, which will actually work for pretty much every school (the "who is your hero and why" essay) -- they had to write that one for his English class, so that's the only one he's worked on!

Apparently at Rice and U Chicago if you apply before November 1 and they accept you, you have to make a decision right then and there about whether you're going to their school or not. So Aidan is going to wait on them, but he's still going to get the stuff ready to go.

Anyway ... today is still September, and I'm going to just take each day at a time and enjoy all the ones we have left until he goes off to wherever.

So, link to my fictional blog is here: Caddie Emerging (beginning post). Be sure to read the page under the heading "What the Heck is This?", too. If you like the blog, let me know!